


Critical Approaches to Film Noir

by yasaman



Category: Community
Genre: Black Character, Character of Color, Chromatic Character, Gen, M/M, Muslim Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:33:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yasaman/pseuds/yasaman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We should have known there was a grift on right from the start." Community goes noir.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Critical Approaches to Film Noir

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scintilla10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintilla10/gifts).



> I really hope you enjoy this, Scintilla! I had a blast writing it, and obviously your prompt for a Community noir parody really inspired me.

We should have known there was a grift on right from the start. No way would Duncan assign a term paper for Anthropology otherwise. Fifteen pages on the mores and customs of a community, complete with field research and references…it was more than we had ever expected. It sure as hell put us behind the eight ball, but if we failed the term paper, we’d fail the class. And no one wanted to fail a class that was supposed to be duck soup. So we were all pretty glum when we got to the study room.

“I thought we would just have to make another diorama or presentation for the final project!” Annie was clearly disappointed she wouldn’t be able to rope us into helping her with another absurdly detailed and labor-intensive diorama.

“I can’t believe I have to do actual work for this joke of a class.”

“Surprise, surprise Jeff: earning a degree does occasionally require doing some work. Suck it up, I’m sure you’ll find a way to cheat anyway.” Another Jeff-Britta bickering match was clearly on the way.

Troy interrupted them before they could really get going. “Wait, this isn’t a group project? I have to write fifteen pages on my own?”  

“Don’t worry, Troy, we can still work on it together. I’ll do my research on the football team and you can do yours on the AV Club. Then we can help each other write.”

“Awesome! Thanks, Abed.” Troy smiled, happy again, and we exchanged a quick high five.

“Wanna be my partner, Shirley?” asked Pierce, leering in that uncomfortable way of his.

Shirley glared at him and emphatically said, “No, thank you. I’ll just write about my church.”

How innocent we were then. We didn’t know we were just helpless rubes yet. We didn’t know what lengths the anthropology paper would drive us to.

 

****

 

Two weeks later, we all turned our papers in. And we had all stayed on the straight and narrow, too. Sure, Troy and I worked on our papers together, and Jeff wasn’t exactly working in the spirit of the assignment by researching the “community” at L Street/The Red Door. But our papers were our own work, and we had worked days—well, hours at least—on them. But in this crazy world, honesty doesn’t amount to much.

As we walked out of class after turning in the papers, I noticed that even the three hoods who usually slept through class had turned papers in.

Jeff had noticed the same thing and noted, “Awesome. If Duncan’s grading these on a curve, we’ll look like absolute geniuses compared to those idiots.”

“Aren’t those some of the guys Vaughn used to hang out with? They could barely bounce a hackey sack, much less write more than a paragraph.”

“Even Vaughn didn’t think they were ‘cool guys,’” Annie leaned towards the group like she wanted to tell us something that wasn’t entirely on the up and up. “I think one of them _sells drugs_.”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Of course one of them sells drugs, they practically need an intravenous supply of pot to keep up that level of lethargy. You dated Vaughn, you had to have seen them smoke up.”

“I know that! I meant, you know, _the hard stuff_.” Annie had her classic wide-eyed innocent dame look, which was a little weird considering she had gone to rehab and all.

Pierce looked a little too interested as he popped another pain pill, but the conversation moved on to our plans for the weekend now that we had finished our papers. Something hinky sure was going on, but we didn’t know exactly what yet.

   
***

 

We got our papers back quickly. Suspiciously quickly. There’s no way Duncan could have graded them all in five days, especially not with his “research” projects. And when we looked at our grades, we had even more reason to be suspicious.

“A _C+_!?!” hissed Annie as she picked up her paper.

“Well, there you go, proof that being a teacher’s pet is no guarantee of good grades—wait, I got a C-? But I had footnotes and everything! I even followed proper research procedure! This is bullshit!”

Jeff smirked and said, “Well, there you go Britta, proof that life is unfair and all our hard work comes to naught, so you may as well—how the hell did I get a D+? I wrote the full fifteen pages, with proper spelling and grammar even!”

“But I thought we did so good on our papers, Abed! We worked on them together and everything!” Troy looked sad and disappointed.

As we all compared our grades, improbably low even for us, I began to suspect we’d been flimflammed. Well, except for Pierce. He probably earned that D-. But the rest of us definitely should have gotten higher grades, and most of the rest of the class was grumbling about their grades too.

“I just can’t believe we got lower grades than those people who sleep through class and do drugs! That’s just not right.” Shirley made a good point. We all turned to discreetly stare at the hoods we had been surprised to see turn in papers last week. They were high-fiving each other and looked suspiciously smug. I moved closer to hear what they were saying.

“Awesome, dude! These are, like, the first A’s we’ve ever gotten!”

“I told you the plan would work! And he told us Duncan would look the other way.”

I was about to tail them, but Troy interrupted me before I could leave the classroom.

“Dude, do you think they _cheated_?” Troy sounded both impressed and scandalized.

“I should have cheated,” muttered Pierce.

Annie turned to glare at him and said, “ _Pierce_! Cheating is wrong. And anyway, I proofread your paper, didn’t you make any of my suggested changes?”

“Eh, too much work, cheating would have been easier.”

“Whatever, we’ve learned our lesson, we’ll cheat next time, let’s move on.” Jeff left, seemingly over his brief outrage about his grade. Britta followed him, and the rest of the group slowly dispersed.

I thought that would be the end of it, but it was just the start. Annie isn’t the kind of broad who lets things go. But Troy and I had plans to shoot part of my latest film project, a documentary feature on Greendale’s Lord of the Rings LARPers, so I forgot about the mystery of the anthropology papers for a while.

“So LARPing is just like playing make-believe for grownups?” asked Troy as we walked outside.

“Yeah, basically.”

“I never got to play the awesome make-believe games I wanted to when I was a kid. Everyone just wanted to play handball, but I really wanted to play Dinosaurs versus Ninjas.”

“I’ll play Dinosaurs versus Ninjas with you, Troy.”

 

****

  
The next day the business of the anthropology papers came roaring back. I should have cottoned on that Annie wouldn’t let it go. Not when grades were on the line. So I knew when she walked in the door that she would be trouble. Annie never gave me a buzz for no reason, and I knew with this whole business about the grades, she’d be a tough broad to deal with.

“Hi, Abed.”

“Hey, Annie. What brings you here?”

“Can’t a girl just come to visit a friend?”

“We don’t do a lot of visiting.”

“Okay, so I just can’t let this thing with the anthropology papers go. How did those creepy slackers get better grades than we did? If they cheated, they need to be punished! Especially if they ruined the curve!”

“So why come to me?”

“Well…you can get things done, can’t you? Like the whole chicken fingers racket? I think you did pretty well with that, you know, before things got all crazy. And you’re really good at noticing things, your creepy notebook proved as much. So could you maybe look into this for me? Like, as a private investigator?”

“And what’s in it for me?”

“It might improve your grade. And Troy’s.”

 _Damn, she has me there_ , I thought. Troy had looked pretty sad about his grade on the paper, and I’ve always been a sucker for Troy’s sad face.

“All right. We should start by asking Professor Duncan what was wrong with our papers. We need to go to his office hours.”

“Confront him right away? Bold move, Abed. Okay, I guess I am interested in hearing what, if anything, went wrong with my paper.”

So we headed to Duncan’s office with our papers, and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be a pretty scene. Either we’d uncover the roots of a shadowy anthropology conspiracy or we’d find out that our papers were just that bad, and neither possibility would make Annie happy. As we arrived at his office, we almost ran into an angry student who was just leaving. It wasn’t a good sign, and Annie started to look a little apprehensive.

I knocked on the door, and Duncan asked warily, “Are you Chang?”

“No?”

“Then come on in! Sorry about that, Chang’s been a pain in the arse lately. I think he wants to steal my iPad.” Duncan stroked the iPad lovingly. The light of the iPad and the sun shining through the blinds of the office window offered the only illumination. Duncan’s glasses flashed in the iPad’s glow, making his eyes hard to read. “What can I do for you two, then?”

“Well, Professor, we were just concerned about our papers. Our grades were much lower than expected, and—”

“Oh, here to do some grade grubbing I see. Well, Ms. Edison, did you consider that perhaps you earned the grade you received? Or that perhaps your paper did not compare favorably to those of your classmates?”

Annie made an outraged noise, but I interrupted her before she could start sputtering. “So you’re saying we did badly because you graded the papers on a curve.”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge other students’ grades. But the numbers don’t lie. You and your little friends were just not at the favorable end of the bell curve. Now please leave, you are distracting me from my very important research.” Duncan looked a little too shifty at that.

“You mean playing with your iPad,” I corrected.

“Out! Before I take off points for being annoyed!”

We got the bum’s rush from Duncan all right. But he’d already given part of the game away, and now we definitely knew there was a grift on. While our study group wasn’t exactly the Honors Club, some of us had to have done well enough to get at least B’s, even with a curve. And it was just very improbable that the guys who slept through class would be the only ones to ace the paper. Annie’s eyes were already alight with the fire of vindication.

“We heard about almost everyone else’s grades, the only people who got A’s were those druggie slackers! There’s no way they could have written brilliant papers! There is definitely something up here, Abed. Come on, we have to go tell everyone else!”

Annie dragged me along back to the study room, where the rest of our study group was lingering between classes as usual.

“You guys! There is absolutely something fishy about the anthropology paper grades!” Annie announced triumphantly.

Jeff looked up briefly from his copy of the student paper. “What, because you got a bad grade? Come on, Annie, accept that we all just did badly on this assignment for some reason.”

“What do you think is so fishy?” asked Britta.

“Abed was there too, he’ll back me up!” I nodded in response. Annie went on to outline everything we had discovered, and while it wasn’t a slam dunk, the facts put together did seem suspicious enough. But the rest of the study group seemed dubious.

“Yeah, speaking as a former lawyer, you haven’t got much of a case there.” Jeff went back to reading his paper.

“That’s why we need to investigate further! We need to get to the bottom of this!”

“Annie, honey, you shouldn’t get involved with those awful slackers. It could be dangerous. Just let it go, they’ll receive their punishment in the end.” Shirley patted Annie on the shoulder, and left to get to her next class. The rest of the study group started to scram too, clearly unconvinced by our preliminary investigations.

“How can none of you care? We’ve uncovered a possibly shady grades conspiracy that could lead to us not passing Anthropology!”

Troy lingered a little and added, “Sorry, Annie. I’ll see you later, man,” before leaving too.

It was definitely something of an anticlimax, but I expected it. Annie and I would be proven right by the third of act of this little play, I was sure of it. I was less sure of how to proceed with the investigation.

“Abed, we can’t just give up! Can you keep looking into this for me? Please? You’re the only one who gets it!”

“Okay, Annie. I’ll do some research tonight, then I’ll get back on the case tomorrow.”

“You’re the best,” she said, and gave me a grateful smile and hug.

 

****

 

It seemed clear that Greendale’s story was changing. We weren’t living in a sitcom with a heart of gold anymore, or even in a high school dramedy updated for a community college. With the mystery of the anthropology paper grades, a seed of corruption had taken root at Greendale. Suspicious, possibly criminal slackers managed to earn A’s while smart dames like Annie got C’s. Professors like Duncan actually graded papers in a timely fashion. The world had gone topsy-turvy. It seemed like we were living in the dark and gritty world of noir.

There was only one solution: learn how to be a hard-boiled private eye. Annie wanted me to solve this case, and I couldn’t let a swell dame like her down. It was time to learn how to be a real private investigator: time to check out some noir movies from the media library. I hoped Troy wouldn’t mind watching them instead of the Indiana Jones marathon we’d had planned.

And while film noir wasn’t our usual thing, it was still a normal movie-watching night with Troy. His arm had, as usual, migrated to lie behind my shoulders on the couch. This was becoming a persistent pattern, and our personal space bubble with each other was consistently shrinking. I was slowly preparing to implement a plan that would act on this information, but I had yet to settle on an appropriate scenario. While there are plenty of nerd-and-jock-get-together scenarios in film and TV, none of them feature two guys, and they usually involve some kind of makeover. I didn’t think Troy would want me to have a makeover.

Anyway, I had to stay focused on learning how to be a gumshoe. I needed to be like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe to get to the bottom of this mystery. Troy caught on to my plan while we were watching _The Maltese Falcon_.

“Abed, are we watching these movies because you want to go all private investigator about this anthropology grade thing?”

“Yes. I promised Annie I would help her. You don’t say no to a dame like her.”

“Cool. You should wear a hat like that dude’s.”

“Yeah. That’s a cool hat.”

“But you shouldn’t pick up smoking, man. Smoking’s bad for you.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll stick with the hat.”

We settled in to keep watching more movies. Like usual, we ended up falling asleep together on my dorm room bed.

 

****

  
The next day, after Troy and I had our usual morning-after-movie-night ritual of eating Froot Loops mixed with Cocoa Pebbles while watching morning cartoons, I was on the case for real. I had my Sam Spade hat, my suit, and my bean-shooter. It was just a water gun I stole from the theater department, but it was the principle of the thing. A gumshoe needs to pack heat. Decked out like the noir detective greats, I was ready to tackle the mystery.

I started by cornering the other students in our anthropology class and giving them the third degree. Most of them sang like canaries, telling sad stories like the study group’s: they’d worked so hard, they’d done the research, and still they got slammed with C’s and D’s. I was more sure than ever that there was some kind of grift on. The bell curve seemed to have an awfully big bulge towards the D end.

But Starburns…Starburns told a different story. It took me a while to track him down, and word in the halls was that he’d been scarce the past couple of days. I remember he’d slunk out of class awfully fast after getting back his paper, too. He hadn’t even taken the time to jaw with his posse. Chances were he was just a palooka, but I needed him to peach on his connections. I finally made him down by the abandoned vending machines behind the metal shop. He was half in shadow and smoking up a storm, and judging by the cig butts by his feet, he’d been at it for a while. Seemed like a sign of a uneasy conscience to me.

“Hey Starburns.”

Starburns started guiltily. “Oh for—I keep telling you guys, my name is Alex.”

“I don’t give a damn what your moniker is. I need to know the rumble on the anthropology papers.”

“The what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His eyes darted around nervously. I was beginning to suspect he was waiting on a meet. He’d spill as soon as I overstayed my welcome; he wouldn’t want me to see whatever else he was getting up to.

“I need to know what grift you pulled to get an A on that paper. You’re one of the only ones that did, and I don’t think it’s because of your sparking intellect, see?”

He pulled up some bravado at that and sneeringly asked, “Want me to give you some tutoring, Abed?”

Time to really tighten the screws on him. I got in his personal space and stared him in the eye.

“Listen, I’m not looking to nail you on this. I just need you to give me the lead on the high pillow. Who’s behind this grades racket?”

“I’m not telling you nothing. Get pack to your pals in the library if you know what’s good for you.”

“Nah, I think I’ll stick around. Maybe see the Dean after this, tell him square what you’re up to out here.” I didn’t know what exactly he was up to, but safe bet it wasn’t exactly on the level. Starburns fidgeted some more, avoiding my eyes before he finally spilled.

“Fine! Fine. I knew I couldn’t get the paper finished in time. So I talked to those guys in our class, the ones who always sleep through class? I figured they’d know about some alternatives, y’know? And they said they could get me a paper, the full fifteen pages with references and everything, for 500 bucks. They guaranteed I’d get an A. I couldn’t pass that up, man. I paid them the money, and they left me the paper on a bench outside. And that’s all I know! Now get out of here, man!”

“Give me the paper and I’ll scram, no more questions asked.”

He rummaged around in his backpack, then shoved the paper at me. I let him go, satisfied to finally have a real lead. Now I just needed an in with the hoods to get the proof I needed.

 

****

  
Now that I had some evidence, I went back to the study room to tell Annie and the others about what I had learned from Starburns.

The first thing I was greeted with was, “What are you wearing, Abed?”

Britta narrowed her eyes at me and asked, “Are you being Don Draper again? Because that was kind of hot, but also pretty creepy.”

“No, I’m a private eye. A gumshoe. A shamus. A—”

“Yeah, okay, we get it. Gimme that hat.” I handed Pierce the hat.

“Did you find anything out about the papers?” Annie asked eagerly.

“There’s definitely some kind of racket going on. Starburns and the hoods in the back of the class are the only ones who got A’s. I cornered Starburns, and he spilled the beans. He bought his anthropology paper through those hoods who always sleep through class.”

“So what? There’s always someone paying someone else to write their papers. That’s called the free market.”

Britta was beginning to look interested despite Jeff’s dismissal. “Sure, but if they’re the only ones who got good grades, then those must have been some brilliantly written papers. And they screwed up the curve for the rest of us.”

“But they’re not brilliant papers, at least not judging by Starburns’s paper.” I passed it over to Britta, who flipped through it looking outraged, before Jeff snatched it from her.

“This piece of crap got an A?! Now I’m getting a little angry.”

“We need to tell the Dean about this! Students can get expelled for plagiarism.” Shirley clearly didn’t know we were in a neo-noir now, otherwise she wouldn’t have suggested going to an inevitably corrupt authority figure. I told her as much.

“Ooookay, so since we’ve apparently ruled out the most reasonable and obvious solution…” said Jeff.

“Dude! One of us should go undercover, figure out what’s going on! Or like, we should set up a sting!” Moments like this reminded me why Troy was my favorite person in the world.

“Troy, that’s brilliant. We’ll set up a sting to get them on the hook for this grift.”

“Jeff, you should be the one to go on the sting! They’ll believe that you want to cheat by buying a paper, and you’re good at lying.”

Jeff looked both pleased and annoyed by Annie’s suggestion. “Okay, so what? I just go up to these guys and ask them to get me a paper?”

“Yeah, basically. Only you need to find out where they’re getting the papers from.”

“They’re outside playing hackey sack right now, right?” Jeff got up and made for the door.

“Wait, aren’t you going to prepare or anything? Come up with a cover story? Oooh, and you need backup! Even I’ve seen enough cop movies to know that.”

“It’s not exactly complex, Shirley. I’ve argued and won cases in court on less information. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” Jeff made his usual smooth exit, and we all waited anxiously for him to get back. Everyone but Pierce, at least. Pierce was still busy trying that rolling the hat down your arm trick with my Sam Spade hat.

After about ten minutes, Jeff sauntered back in. He shrugged and said, “Sorry, I didn’t really get anything helpful out of them. They’re definitely not the ones writing the papers, though. They’re answering to someone else, and not getting much of a cut of the profits either.”

“Hmmm. Guess I need to pound the streets a little more. Thanks, Jeff.”  

  
****

  
I spent the rest of the day tailing the hoods, hoping they’d lead me to the high pillow in charge of the grift. The hoods were too snowed up on mary jane to really notice me, so when they finally returned to their higher-up with the day’s take, I had eyes on them. I followed them into the bowels of the computer lab, which was lit only by the dim glow of screensavers and the bars of light through Greendale’s new blinds. When my eyes adjusted, I finally saw who the mastermind was.

It was Garrett Lambert, the science nerd. I can’t say he had been my prime suspect. But the evidence was clear as I watched him take the money the hoods brought him. Garrett counted out what looked like a couple c-notes back to the hoods as their part of the cut, then counted out some more.

“I’ll see that this gets to our benefactor. Thank you, gentlemen, it seems business is booming.”

And so the grift went deeper. Seems like there was another person in this chain of corruption. I’d need to do more investigating tomorrow.

The next morning, I went back to the study group with the results of my gumshoeing.

“I’ve figured out who’s writing the papers.”

Pierce looked surprised. “Huh, really? I thought it would take longer.”

“Well? Who is it?”

“Garrett Lambert.”

A chorus of “Who?”s and blank stares was the only response. That’s not how it usually went, according to my research.

“You know, that science nerd. He was in our psychology class. Glasses, kind of chubby…”

“Oooooohhhhh. …That guy? Really?” Annie seemed a little disappointed by this solution to the mystery.

“He seems like such a harmless dweeb.”

Jeff was dubious as usual, asking, “Are you sure it’s him? He seems like the kind of guy who still needs his mom to pack his lunches, not exactly criminal mastermind material.”

“I’m sure. I saw the hoods bring him the money in the computer lab. But we’re still missing one of the players in this con. Garrett separated a cut of the money to go their ‘benefactor.’ Someone on campus is helping them get away with it.”

“I guess we just need to turn them over to the Dean now. He’ll punish them, and then have Professor Duncan change the curve, and we’ll have our better grades.”

“Maybe, Shirley. But I’ve got some suspicions about that. I’ve gotta see this through to the end, no involving the Dean. No private eye worth his salt lets a case go just when it gets really hinky.”

“So what now, Abed?” asked Annie.

“Now we find the head honcho. We need to get Garrett to squeal.”

“Do you need me to beat him up? I can totally beat him up. I’m a jock, he’s a nerd, it’s like the natural order of things.”

“No thanks, Troy.” I turned to Britta. “What I need is for you to be the femme fatale, Britta."

"What?"

"Clearly we're in a neo-noir, and as a femme fatale you can seduce the information out of Garrett."

"Abed, what have we told you about categorizing all life events into genre tropes? Just because there's a potential shadowy cheating conspiracy, a mystery steeped in corruption, and Greendale has these weird new blinds, doesn't mean we're...huh."

I gave Britta a meaningful look.

"Well, neo-noir or not, I refuse to be a femme fatale! It's a sexist, patriarchal character archetype predicated on stereotypes of destructive, evil women whose power is linked to their dangerous sexuality! And ew, I don’t want to seduce Garrett."

The prospect of Britta as a femme fatale clearly interested Jeff. “It’s not like you need to have sex with the guy. Flash some cleavage, show off your gams, flirt a little…he’ll be like putty in your hands.”

“Oh, so now you’re entering the world of neo-noir with Abed, Jeff?”

“Sure, why not.”

“So, what, I go put on a short skirt and a low-cut shirt and…question him?”

“Yeah, basically.”

“Alright. But only in hopes of bringing down The Man.”

Britta left to change into appropriate femme fatale wear, and the study group scattered to their various classes. There may have been a shady mystery afoot, but life at Greendale had to continue as normal. After my film class, I went back to the study room to wait for Britta. Jeff was waiting there too, clearly drawn into the mystery despite himself.

“Come on, I cannot miss Britta getting all dressed up to seduce a nerd.”

“Fair enough,” I replied. And then our attention was diverted by the gorgeous broad entering the room. Britta had followed Jeff’s previous suggestion to flash some cleavage and show off her gams: she was wearing a miniskirt with a low-cut top, and the boots she was wearing made her gams look like they went on for miles. She looked like sin and temptation, a woman who could get anything she wanted out of a man. She looked like a true femme fatale. Jeff let out an admiring wolf whistle while Britta just glared at him.

“Am I femme fatale enough for you?”

I answered before Jeff could kick off another argument. “Definitely. Garrett’s in the cafeteria, you can go work your wiles on him there.”

So we headed to the cafeteria, where Britta could get the dirt from Garrett while Jeff and I watched the con from another table. As Britta walked towards Garrett and sat at his table, we could see the gobsmacked look on the poor mook’s face. I thought, _he’ll sing like a canary for her_. And he did.

“Huh-hey Britta.”

“Hi Garrett. It’s been a while since psychology class, huh? Have to admit, I’ve missed seeing you around.” Britta leaned closer across the table, giving him an undoubtedly exceptional view of her feminine wiles. Garrett’s eyes were fixed on her chest.

“Yeah? Wow, that’s—”

“So, I heard you were the guy to talk to about getting some ‘academic help.’”

“You mean tutoring? I could definitely—”

Britta lost a little of her femme fatale cool. “Uh, no, I meant me buying a term paper from you.”

Garrett looked crestfallen at that, but rallied and said, “Yeah, I can help you with that. Maybe even give you a little discount?”

Britta rewarded him with a smile, and set the trap. “Pretty impressive, managing a racket like this right under the Dean’s nose. You’ve gotta be making a pretty penny with this scheme.”

“Oh yeah. Another semester, and I’ll have enough for a car! The Dean’ll never catch on either, I’ve got connections.”

“What, like in the faculty?” asked Britta, looking impressed. Britta’s acting skills were better than I’d hoped.

Garrett nodded and leaned in to whisper something in her ear for a minute. After that, we had it in the bag. Britta wrapped up the conversation quickly, and came back to our table.

“So? Who’s the culprit?”

“Get this, it’s Duncan.”

“What? Duncan wouldn’t even help me cheat when I started at Greendale, and he’s covering for this nerd? What a hypocrite!”

“Yeah, he’s taking a cut of the profits. Apparently, he caught Garrett in the act and said he’d keep it hush-hush if he got some of the money. Then he got greedy and started assigning long papers so more people would go to Garrett, and they’d both get more money. It’s sort of ingenious really.”

Jeff sat back, looking admiring despite himself. “It really is. I almost wish I’d thought of it.”

“So now what, Abed?” asked Britta.

“Now we play it Duncan’s way. We blackmail him.”

If this were really a noir movie or a hardboiled novel, then I could have had my dramatic end of scene beat.

“Seriously? Blackmail? I know this whole noir thing has worked out alarmingly well, but isn’t that taking it a bit too far?” asked Britta, looking less than impressed. But Jeff’s eyes were full of an unholy glee at the prospect of pulling a con on Duncan, and I knew I had him.

“C’mon, Britta! We can guarantee ourselves good grades, and stick it to Duncan!”

“You’re just still pissed Duncan wouldn’t help you cheat your way through Greendale when you first started here.”

“Well, yes! Yes I am! And now I find out the hypocrite is cheating! He’s made it personal now, and I want revenge.”

“If we blackmail him, we can guarantee ourselves good grades in all of his classes for the rest of our time at Greendale,” I added.

Britta finally looked tempted, and said, “Okay. So how do we do it?”

 

****

 

After coming up with a blackmail plan in the cafeteria, we regrouped with everyone else and I gave them the lay on the paper racket.

“I knew it!” exclaimed Annie, slamming the table. “This goes all the way to the top!”

I corrected Annie, saying, “Actually, Dean Pelton would be all the way to the top.”

“Does this mean we can get Duncan fired? I vote for getting Duncan fired.” Troy looked a little excited at the prospect.

“While I’m sure that would provide us all with not insignificant satisfaction, Abed, Britta, and I have come up with a far better plan. We’re going to blackmail him.”

Pierce and Troy looked thrilled at the prospect, while Shirley looked a little appalled. Annie seemed intrigued, but unconvinced. I knew it wouldn’t take much to sway her though: she’s a dame with a serious mean streak.

“Blackmail is illegal, you know. And I don’t see why we should stoop to those cheaters’ level!” said Shirley.

Britta leaned toward Shirley and said, “But if we hold this over Duncan’s head, we can guarantee ourselves good grades in his classes for the rest of our time at Greendale. And we’ll have him in our pocket for anything else we might need. It’s win-win for everybody!”

“Oooohh, that’s good. I mean, it’s very immoral, but…it works out so neatly.” I knew Annie would go in on the racket with us then. That just left Shirley. If she didn’t go in on it with us, the whole thing would fall apart. We all had to put the squeeze on Duncan together.

We all turned to look at Shirley. She seemed conflicted. I could tell she wanted to do it, but she needed one last push. Annie was the one to give it.

“Do you know what he’s done with the money he’s extorted from Garrett? He bought himself an _iPad_. He deserves to be blackmailed. If we go to the Dean, poor Garrett will just get expelled, and really, he’s just another victim! He’s caught under Duncan’s thumb, and he can’t see a way out!”

 _Smart move, pulling on Shirley’s heart strings. She’ll say yes to rescue poor little Garrett now_ , I thought, and I was right.

“And Garrett won’t be able to do anything himself! You’re right, Annie. We need to help Garrett. Let’s go blackmail Duncan.”

 

****

 

With everyone on board, we put the plan into place. Taking up strategic positions surrounding Duncan’s office, we waited until after his last late afternoon class, when he usually returned to his office to pick up his mail and lock up. And when he finally left his office, we sprang the trap.

Duncan looked surprised and a little nervous to see all of us converging on him at once, and said, “What’s all this about then? Jeffrey, is this one of your little schemes? If this is about your grades on that paper, I already told Ms. Edison—”

“This is about the papers, Professor Duncan. But it’s not what you think. We’re wise to your scheme, see? And we’d like to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement,” I said.

Annie picked up the patter then. “We know what you’re pulling with Garrett, Professor Duncan. We know you’re skimming the profits off his paper writing racket, and assigning more papers so that business goes his way. We know you’re giving everyone else lower grades to improve Garrett’s reputation.”

“Well, well, well. I suppose this is the part where I say that if it weren’t for you meddling kids, I’d have gotten away with it too?”

“No, actually, this is the part where we have some more terse exchanges before we come down to the fact that we’re blackmailing you for better grades and unspecified future favors. This is neo-noir, you see, not a Scooby Doo episode. The Scooby team never dealt with corruption plots.”

“A neo-noir—wait, you’re blackmailing me? Ha! What specious accusations! How do you plan to make me comply with these ridiculous demands?”

“It’s simple, really. We can go to the Dean and turn in Garrett, who will then inevitably turn you in too. You can deny it then, but all the Dean has to do is take a look at your grade book, and the suspicious pattern of paper grades will speak for itself,” said Jeff.

“Face it, we have you pwned!” crowed Pierce.

We all collectively winced at that, and Troy said, “Yeah, never use that word again.”

“This is a bold move. You’re implicating yourselves just as much, you know.”

Britta smiled at that and said, “Oh, we know. But you don’t really have any other options, do you? There are seven of us who know what you’re up to and can go to the Dean.”

“Face it, Duncan, this is what you get when you’re a hypocritical extorter. Your sins are just coming home to roost,” added Shirley.

Duncan finally gave up the game, and sighed. “Fine, well played, congratulations on your amateur sleuthing. What are your terms?”

“Change our paper grades to the ones we really deserve. And promise that we will always pass Anthropology and any future class of yours with at least a B,” answered Annie.

“Done. Now can I leave?” We stepped aside to let him pass, ignoring his angry muttering about “those damned kids.”

As Duncan left, Troy and I exchanged a high five and fist bump in celebration.

“Huh, that was easier than expected,” remarked Jeff.

 

****

 

With the investigation over, I took off my private investigator hat. “Traditionally, noir ends on a note of moral ambiguity where no one’s really a winner.”

There was a long pause as we all consulted our consciences. “Yeah, no, I’m feeling pretty good about myself,” said Britta. Everyone else agreed, and we walked outside.  
I guess we weren’t too worried about the lengths the anthropology paper drove us to. We hadn’t even really reached Veronica Mars levels of corruption and human depravity. But I guess not everything can fit genre requirements exactly.

Troy hung back and walked with me towards my dorm instead of heading back to Pierce’s place. He seemed a little nervous, which was unusual. Troy was almost never nervous around me. “So…we never got to have the Indiana Jones movie night we actually planned on.”

“Yeah, we didn’t. Want to come over tonight?”

“Yeah! Um, I mean, sure. Cool.”

“Cool.”

We shared a moment of only slightly awkward silence. “I think you made a really awesome private investigator, Abed,” said Troy shyly.

“Thanks, Troy. I think you did a really good job of looking menacing when we were blackmailing Duncan.”

“Thanks, Abed.”  

Greendale had returned to normal: our time dealing with moral ambiguity and the failings of weak and easily corrupted men was over. Now I could turn my attention to reducing my personal space bubble with Troy. It seemed like he might have gotten the hint, and I wouldn’t even have to implement one of my pop culture scenarios.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my betas, ishie and oliveoyl! Any remaining errors are totally up to me.
> 
> I am also indebted to [this hardboiled slang glossary](http://www.miskatonic.org/slang.html) compiled by William Denton. And for those of you who are also going "Garrett? Who's that?" I offer you this link to jog your memory: [Garrett's Greendale Campus Connect page](http://www.greendalecommunitycollege.com/campus-connect/garrett-lambert.shtml).


End file.
